The holiday season, often painted in rosy hues of cheer and togetherness, ironically tends to be quite polarizing. Even the holidays themselves can spark intense debates – remember the infamous “War on Christmas?” But beyond the broader holiday culture wars, even the supposedly comforting entertainment we consume between Thanksgiving and Christmas can become a battleground of opinions and sensitivities. Take Christmas movies, for instance. For years, people have passionately argued about what truly constitutes a “Christmas movie,” with Die Hard frequently entering the fray. The generally accepted criteria seem to boil down to: featuring “Christmas” in the title, imparting a lesson about the Christmas spirit, or falling into the romantic comedy genre. By those metrics, even a horror film like Black Christmas could technically qualify.
If the Christmas movie debate feels tiresome, consider the even more contentious realm of holiday music. Here, the lines are sharply drawn: you’re either in the camp that starts blasting Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” as soon as September hits, or you’re siding with those who’d gleefully torch a Mannheim Steamroller CD collection. Many lean towards the latter, finding the relentless repetition of saccharine, commercially-driven Christmas jingles grating. It’s hard to logically pinpoint why songs like “Sleigh Ride,” “Santa Baby,” or even Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime” can feel so irritating, but for many, it’s almost a visceral, Pavlovian aversion to the manufactured holiday cheer.
Perhaps the issue lies in the inherent superficiality. Holiday pop music’s effervescent cheer can indeed be a welcome antidote to the winter blues, much like sunlight combats Seasonal Affective Disorder. However, the holiday season is also undeniably stressful and emotionally charged for many. It can amplify feelings of grief, loss, and struggle. It’s therefore not surprising that a thread of darkness runs beneath much of our beloved Christmas music. Some might even criticize A Charlie Brown Christmas for being “too melancholy,” a remarkably low bar for sadness. Yet, Charlie Brown’s grumpy peers and the poignant Vince Guaraldi Trio soundtrack are far from the darkest depths of Christmas music. Think of “In the Bleak Midwinter,” practically a choral black metal hymn in disguise. Or consider “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,” whose original lyrics were deemed too depressing for public consumption, featuring lines like, “It may be your last / Next year we all may be living in the past.” And who can forget the notoriously maudlin “Christmas Shoes,” a contemporary Christian ballad about a dying mother and her son’s desperate, coin-counting attempt to buy her shoes before she passes – a song that comedian Patton Oswalt aptly described as capable of making you “lose all hope that we live in a just or sane universe.”
Then, there’s a lesser-known tune, a haunting outlier from 1930, recorded by the Appalachian folk trio, The Carolina Buddies. This rustic, vintage recording recounts a true story from Christmas Day 1929. It begins innocently enough, like many traditional Christmas tales: “It was on last Christmas evening/The snow was on the ground.” Pleasant, wintery imagery. But the next line takes a stark turn: “His home in North Carolina, where the murder was bound.” Suddenly, we’re plunged into darkness. This is “The Murder Of The Lawson Family,” a Depression-era murder ballad. While musically unassuming, it’s definitely not something you’d want on your festive holiday playlist.
Lawson family portrait taken shortly before the murders, a chilling image of a family unaware of their impending tragedy.
Like all murder ballads, “The Murder of the Lawson Family” is rooted in a real and horrific crime. On December 25, 1929, in North Carolina, Charlie Lawson brutally murdered his wife and six of his seven children with a shotgun. He then dragged their bodies into the family tobacco barn, chillingly placing their heads on stone pillows, as detailed in an episode of the podcast Criminal. Hours later, Lawson walked into the nearby woods and took his own life. His seventh child, Arthur, was spared only because he was running errands away from the home during the massacre. Just days before the horrific event, Lawson had purchased new clothes for his family and arranged for a family portrait – the stark image above – which now serves as an eerie and unsettling memento of the tragedy. In the aftermath, visitors reportedly flocked to the Lawson home, some even taking raisins from a cake baked in the house as macabre souvenirs, highlighting the morbid fascination surrounding the case.
“The Murder of the Lawson Family” song itself, recorded decades before artists like Nick Cave began to delve into society’s darker figures through song, is comparatively subtle. It lacks the sensationalism often found in later musical explorations of murder. The Carolina Buddies deliver the tale in a restrained, close-harmony style, their folk rendition offering a plainspoken account of Lawson’s brutal acts. “The raging man could not be stopped, he would not heed their call,” they sing. “He kept on firing fatal shots until he killed them all.” The song’s simplicity and almost pleasant melody amplify its disturbing nature, especially when juxtaposed with the gruesome reality of the events it describes. The haunting quality emerges precisely from this contrast – a gentle tune recounting unspeakable violence.
The motive behind Lawson’s horrific actions remains shrouded in mystery. One theory suggested a head injury might have triggered a mental breakdown, though a subsequent autopsy ruled this out. Another, more disturbing theory, whispered for years, alleges an incestuous relationship between Lawson and his daughter Marie, resulting in a pregnancy. While never officially confirmed, a friend of Marie’s reportedly shared this information, and a relative, Stella Lawson, claimed to have overheard her mother, Jettie, discussing it. Adding to the grim context, these events unfolded as the Great Depression tightened its grip on the United States, a period that saw a rise in homicides across the nation. The economic desperation and social anxieties of the era may have contributed to an already volatile situation.
Returning to the initial question: Is “The Murder of the Lawson Family” a Christmas song? While the tragedy occurred on Christmas Day, the song isn’t thematically about Christmas in the traditional sense. It’s a true crime narrative set against the backdrop of Christmas, a chilling piece of local history that morphed into legend in North Carolina. Its unsettling nature might arguably make it more fitting for Halloween. Yet, in its stark portrayal of holiday darkness, it serves as a potent reminder that beneath the shimmering surface of Christmas cheer, deeper, more troubling stories often lie hidden. And in that sense, it’s certainly more thought-provoking, if infinitely more disturbing, than “Christmas Shoes.”
